


Blush Response

by silversilky



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game), Blade Runner (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Blade Runner Fusion, F/F, Romance, Science Fiction, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23759293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversilky/pseuds/silversilky
Summary: "Miss Aoba," Chisato cuts her off cooly, "is this question meant to test whether I am a replicant, or a lesbian?"
Relationships: Aoba Moca/Shirasagi Chisato
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	Blush Response

It's raining.

  
Mercifully, only a light rain today, no real risk of any flooding. The lower-level market district is safe for now. And thank whatever God was up there for that. She's got no other place to go for bread these days since her last place got busted to hell by a runaway spinner. The jackass got his due, but that doesn't bring back the precious goods. This other stall is serviceable at best.

  
Moca slides a few grimy coins over the counter, her long coat brushing up against it, and the man on the other side grabs them up. "Two small loaves," she says. "The good ones in the back. I can see 'em."

  
It gets her an annoyed side-eye, but he tosses them into the bag and then tosses the bag into her waiting arms. She nods before leaving the stall, weaving her way through the crowds and pulling one of the loaves out to gnaw off a sizable bite. Ahh, that's the good shit. Simple pleasures. She shoves a tall idiot in a bulky mask aside to step out of the flow.

  
Her spinner's right where she left it, and it hasn't even been tagged this time. She pops the door open and climbs in, contorting herself to cram in alongside all the other rubbish. It's a patrol spinner, she really has no right to fill it with all this shit. But she tosses the bag behind her all the same as she starts in on the second loaf.

  
Leaning back, she closes her eyes for a moment of rest.

  
BEEP  
BEEP

  
Moment's over, alright. Her eyes flick open and down to her communicator. Time to get to work. She taps it on, and once more to accept the incoming call. "Yo, Chief, what's up this time?"

  
_"Hell of a way to greet your superior, Aoba."_

  
"I'm a hell of a cop. Now, where's the little lost replicant?" Moca starts up the spinner with a growl from its old engine, and it starts to rise off the ground with a rush of air that sends the trash outside flying into a miniature maelstrom. "Give me the details."

  
_"Basic pleasure model. I'll toss the files your way, check 'em out or don't. Story is that a few years back the shipping container it was bein' moved it was destroyed and they assumed it went along with it, but they recovered the wreckage recently and we've got no sign of a body."_

  
"A few years? Then it's close to the end of its lifespan. Sounds real sloppy," Moca replies, and shoves the last of the bread into her mouth. She cranks the spinner into gear and sends it smoothly drifting into the sky. "Any leads?"

  
_"Yeah. We're looking at an acting agency in the upper west side but the trail's gone cold for our guys. We need a proper Blade Runner to check 'em out."_

  
Moca whistles and adjusts a mirror. She squints into it and wipes a bit of dirty water off her cheek. Gotta look her very best for the actresses. "Not sure if you've got the right number, Chief, I'm probably the least proper Runner you'll find anywhere."

  
_"Cute. I'll send the coordinates to you. Check it out, give anybody who looks suspicious the test. You know the drill, Aoba. Good luck."_

  
The call ends. Moca checks the message and taps the coordinates into her spinner's dash. It beeps harshly as it reads them and begins to plot a course. Actresses, huh... should be an interesting day after all. Checking under the dash, she finds the police-issued sidearm there in its holster. She puts it on and tosses the coat around to conceal it.

  
She looks up and realizes when she adjusted the mirror it had sent a slip of paper falling from its perch. Moca reaches out to pick it up, takes a moment to look at it as the spinner turns.

  
Then she flips the photograph of the black-haired girl upside down and leaves it where it fell.

* * *

The leaning sign out front says _Full Bloom Acting & Modeling Agency_, then a few more lines in various languages that she assumes are the same. She snorts the first time she sees it. They really couldn't have chosen a name that projected the image of a front for a porno den if they had tried. But the chief said it was legit, and what unsavory place bothered to put up a front these days?

  
Her spinner sits waiting in an alleyway behind the place. There was a back entrance, but it was locked and no amount of knocking seemed to do shit, so here she is coming around the front like a good officer. Christ, it's dirty. She kicks away an animal that scurries over her boot and makes her way to the door.

  
DON DON DON

  
...

  
The door creaks open slightly. There's a man on the other side, ugly as sin and an inch from death. Probably the manager. His mouth opens to reveal a set of expensive false teeth as he spits out a greeting. "You the goon they sent out? We're clean. No replicants here."

  
"Real glad to hear it," Moca replies with a lazy grin. She pulls out her badge just for the fun of it. "You shouldn't mind if I speak to some of your girls, then? Just to let the 'ol Chief know his intel was off-base. Then I'll be out of your..." She glances at the curve of his head. "...hands?" He growls in response, but the door still slowly swings open.

  
Moca walks through with an exaggerated nod. "Glad to meetcha, Mister..."

  
"Sal," he responds flatly, "and that's all you're getting. Get your work done and get the hell out of my building, Blade Runner."

  
Moca shrugs. Well, it's not like she has much interest in talking to this man, or men in general, so it's a net positive if he's so eager to clam up. She moves down the dim hallway as a single light flickers at the end. Passing by room after room, she peers inside them all.

  
Most are empty. Some aren't. She spares a smile and a little wave for the girls she sees--thankfully they look like they're alright, or at least as alright as anyone can be. This place, while skeevy as all get out, does seem to be more or less legitimate. She even spots a girl she's fairly certain she saw in an ad for the off-world colonies the other day. It's a sad irony that she can't make it out there herself.

  
There's a song playing somewhere, in one of the back rooms. It's an old one. She feels like she's heard it before, but the memory is so murky it may as well be false.

  
_One more kiss, dear_  
_One more sigh_

  
The door of the final room is open, and Moca looks through it. And then her breath stops in her throat at the sight of the vision before her. The woman within is slight and pale as a ghost, long blonde hair tied back into a golden waterfall. Her eyes flick up to the mirror before her to connect with Moca's gaze.

  
For a moment, they stay like that in near-frozen time as the song plays on. And then the earth spins once again.

  
"Hey, Miss," Moca manages to get out. "I'd like to borrow you for a moment, if you don't mind." She shows her badge again just out of habit, flipping the cover open to reveal her photograph and certification within.

  
The actress looks it over and turns in her seat to fully face her. "Ah, a real Blade Runner... I confess I haven't seen one of those before. You're here because you think one of us could be a replicant, I assume?" She looks like she thinks the idea is preposterous to the point of almost pitying Moca. "You're welcome to perform whatever tests you like on me, or any of us, I suppose."

  
Moca pulls up a seat. "Glad to hear it, Miss...

  
"Shirasagi." She rests her head in her hand, her makeup only partially applied. "Chisato, if you must." The mirror behind her reflects Moca's face back at her and she can't say she likes the expression she's wearing right now. Moca moves to close the door, to give them some privacy.

  
Chisato sighs. "Just... do try to not disturb the younger girls too much. I believe the sight of such a handsome, unfamiliar officer may be quite distracting."

  
Ah, fuck, she hates how that did something to her. "Handsome? A bit inappropriate for a suspect to say, Miss Chisato."

  
"Ah, of course..." Chisato smiles softly. "I have to say, 'suspect' isn't a role I've played before. Forgive me if I slip up, will you?" She closes her eyes for a moment, and Moca gulps as she begins to set up the equipment for the test.

  
Retina scanner. Pulse monitor. And several other gadgets that for the most part had no true purpose but to intimidate the subject, get them to reveal a little more. The actress watches her curiously. "And what's all this? I confess, I'm quite ignorant to the methods you officers use to flush out replicants."

  
"This," Moca replies as she sits down opposite Chisato, "is what we in the business refer to as the Voight-Kampff test. Standard procedure. I'm gonna ask you a series of questions, then from all the readings on these doodads I should be able to tell if you're the real deal or not."

  
"Understood. Please make it quick if you can, though, Miss Aoba, I've got some filming to do later in the afternoon."

  
"Mmhmm, I'll do my best," Moca replies, and glances at Chisato's pupil blown up in full detail on the screen in front of her. No sign of anything yet. But that's to be expected. The color of her eye is... mesmerizing. Moca takes her gaze away with some effort. She smiles to the actress. "Now, let's get started."

  
She pulls out a notebook, flips through it to the well-worn section near the back. She knows most of the questions by heart. It's always good to have them written out, though. "While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back."

  
"Why on earth would I do that?"

  
"You tell me. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it can't do so without your help." Moca looks up to Chisato, gaze moving between her face and the image of her pupil, looking for involuntary dilations. "You're not helping. Why?"

  
Chisato watches her, mulls her answer over, and Moca continues to observe. "If I flipped it over in the first place, I must have had some reason. I can't imagine what it was. But if it's something I decided to do then I would not undo it."

  
"I see." It's not the response Moca was expecting, and she prepares the next question. She clears her throat. "You're watching television. Suddenly you spot a wasp crawling on your arm. How do you react?"

  
"I'd kill it," Chisato says without so much as blinking. "But I'd feel bad for the creature, of course."

  
Moca looks over her expression carefully before moving down the list. Hmm... ah, this works. "Someone gives you a calfskin wallet for your birthday. How do you react?"

  
"I wouldn't accept it, and I would contact the authorities." She looks to Moca with some amusement. "I suppose that would be you, or one of your colleagues. Is that a situation you've had to deal with, Miss Aoba?"

  
Moca holds her steady gaze with a projected grin. "Nope, not personally. These are all just part of the test, I didn't make 'em up myself."

  
"So you're simply playing your role, reading from your own script." Chisato smiles. "I see we're not too dissimilar after all, Officer. I can tell you've had experience with this part." Moca doesn't have a response, so she flips to the next page instead of even trying.

  
"You're reading a magazine." She searches Chisato's marble features for a blush response as she runs through the next part of the question. "You come across a full-page nude photo of a girl. You--"

  
"Miss Aoba," Chisato cuts her off cooly, "is this question meant to test whether I am a replicant, or a lesbian?"

  
"...You show it to your husband, who likes it so much, he hangs it on your bedroom wall. The girl is lying on a bearskin rug." Moca reaches out to check the heart rate monitor and notes what she sees. Chisato's expression doesn't change a bit.

  
"I'm afraid that's a question I simply can't answer. I would never read a magazine with such pictures, not with my reputation in the industry on the line." Her fingers tap on the arm of her chair. "And I would never have a husband."

  
"I see." Moca leans back in her seat, and prepares the next question. "Describe, in single words only, the good things that come to mind about your mother."

  
Chisato's smile doesn't waver. But she doesn't respond.

  
The hilt of Moca's gun is cold against the tips of her fingers as her steady gaze stays locked to her view of Chisato's unchanging pupil. Everything she's seen so far points to the same conclusion, the test doesn't lie. It doesn't ever lie. But this time it was so obvious, so fast, it's almost concerning...

  
"Warm, supportive... powerful." Chisato says the words after some deliberation and even she must know how hollow they sound. She hasn't stopped smiling. "I apologize, my memories of her are hazy, to be honest."

  
"I think," Moca begins as her fingers tighten, "we both know why that is, Miss Chisato."

  
"You're implying you think I'm a replicant? Really now, Miss Aoba, you can't be serious." She half-expects Chisato to make a move to attack, but she doesn't. Just sits and smiles. "Take your hand off that gun. You'd threaten a poor unarmed girl, all alone in her dressing room?"

  
"I'd threaten a replicant who could toss me through this wall without much effort." Moca pulls out her weapon fully and points it at Chisato, not bothering to mask her actions anymore. Cards all out on the table.

  
Chisato sits in the crosshairs, and she stares to Moca as her grip on the seat tightens. "...May I ask a question of my own?"

  
"Go for it," Moca says, her mouth dry and her fingers beginning to ache from how tight her grip is on the gun. Chisato's eyes don't show any emotion at all as she speaks her reply. A question Moca's heard before, one she'd prefer not to.

  
"Have you ever retired a human by mistake?"

  
"Never."

  
"But in your position that is a risk."

  
Chisato stands from her seat. "My name is Chisato Shirasagi. I am an actress. I've been an actress for a long time. My mother was one, too. She raised me to eventually enter the industry, and I've followed her wishes to the best of my ability. I'm good at it. Good at playing all sorts of roles. But Chisato Shirasagi is not a role." She does not blink. "She is as real as you are."

  
"And she's dead," Moca replies. "Dead, or off-world, or she's just disappeared. The real Chisato--if that's her name, that part wasn't on file--the woman they got your memories from, that is. They're fake. Implants requested by your would-be owner. They wanted a replicant who knew how to act."

  
"A ridiculous story." Chisato's face on the monitor betrays no emotion, but her fists off-screen are balled up tightly enough Moca can see her knuckles are white. "I was in a spinner crash several years ago, you can look up the record of it--"

  
"Not a spinner crash," Moca says coldly. "A transport crash. You were being taken to your owner, and when it happened, you were let loose with your memories active. So, believing you were an actress, you found your way here."

  
"That's not--" Chisato tries to say. "That's nonsense and you know it. Stop pointing that gun at me."

  
"I'm just doing my job," she replies. "Escaped replicants are a public hazard." Moca meets Chisato's gaze, and she knows she should have pulled the trigger already. She should be pulling it now. The replicant should be retired already, on the floor with its mechanical brains leaking out.

  
So why isn't it?

  
Maybe she needs her to believe it first before she can feel justified.

  
"If I must prove it... then I'll do something a replicant wouldn't." Chisato moves silently around the table, carefully, and Moca's gun follows her movements. She steps back, but Chisato steps forward to close the distance. A hand brushes against hers. It's warm.

  
Her lips are just as warm.

  
Chisato keeps her eyes open halfway as she leans into the kiss, and Moca feels something in her chest contract in on itself tightly as they make contact once more. Her pupils are still not dilating. The deep color of her eyes is even clearer now than it was on the monitor.

  
Moca stumbles a half-step backward under the new weight and feels her back collide with the wall behind her. Chisato doesn't pull away. Just closes her eyes and drowns Moca in softness, her small, slender hand sliding up her wrist and then to her forearm. The kiss intensifies, and Moca--

  
_\--Moca can't breathe--!!_

  
Chisato notices this fact as soon as she does. But she doesn't stop. She doesn't seem to have the same need, she isn't losing her strength the way Moca is...

  
And when the realization of that fact strikes her, then she finally does pull away with a gasp, putting a hand to her mouth as her eyes widen and her gaze moves all around the room wildly. "Why wasn't I..." she whispers as Moca chokes, struggles for breath and tries to keep her hold on the gun. "I didn't need to breathe. Oh..."

  
And that's it, finally. The moment of acceptance. Moca can pull the trigger now, she can do it just as soon as the strength returns to her fingers.

  
Chisato steps back once more, pushing the table aside and sitting back down into the chair. She moves her hand away from her mouth. Stares at it, turns it around to examine every inch of its surface, looking for something she won't find. But even without evidence she must know the truth now.

  
A tear falls from her eye to streak down her cheek, and Moca wonders what it's made of.

  
She forces herself to her feet, points the gun once more, but Chisato doesn't even look at her. She just takes a long, shuddering, unnecessary breath. And then she stands. Her eyes are filled with an emotion Moca can't understand, maybe one her brain isn't capable of.

  
"The spinner crash... or transport accident..." Chisato begins, so quietly Moca can barely hear her. "That was three and a half years ago."

  
And then Moca understands exactly what the replicant is coming to terms with, and despite herself, despite all the images of retired bodies that flash through her mind, she can't help but feel something twist inside. "Yeah. Four year lifespan for types like you, that's common knowledge. You're... coming up on the end of it."

  
"So let me live it out." Chisato's gaze turns to her and Moca loses herself in the pure fire she sees within.

  
"If I'm going to die so soon anyway, just let me finish my days as an actress. Tell them you found the replicant here, but the body was destroyed." She doesn't plead desperately to live, far from it, her voice only becomes firmer. Her resolve only grows more apparent in the way her brow creases. "Actresses disappear every day here, you know. They won't miss me when I'm gone."

  
Moca's grip on the gun wavers. "You know I can't do that."

  
"I see." Chisato looks to her and gives her something like a smile, something like a beautiful mask. "Call me by my name one more time, then, before you finish the job, Moca."

  
"...Chisato," she whispers.

  
"That's it. Thank you." Chisato looks her in the eyes, and the smile slips, and underneath it is something else. Moca's grip on the gun wavers, the contraction in her chest won't stop tightening. "Well, then. Make your choice."

  
And, after a moment that feels like a lifetime, she does.

* * *

It's still raining outside when she makes her way down the alleyway to the spinner. She pops the door open and hops inside, slamming it behind her and going through the motions with tired hands. She puts in the coordinates of her destination. Home.

  
BEEP  
BEEP

  
She taps her communicator twice as the vehicle leaves the ground. "Hey, Chief."

  
_"Aoba. You sound tired."_

  
"You sound like my dad. Which you are not, Chief." Moca stares at the lights out the window as they blur together, the massive flashing advertisements and signs and lamps and the fluorescent rays that escape from nearly-shut windows. "Job's done."

  
Off in the distance, she can see it. The terrible shining pyramid that is the Tyrell Corporation's headquarters. She put in these coordinates specifically so she could see it. She mouths two words. A silent rebellion.

  
_"Good work. Really. You need me to send a cleanup team?"_

  
"No need," Moca replies. "The body was destroyed."

  
_"I see. Well done, Aoba. Get yourself somethin' nice for dinner. I hear they're aiming to reopen that bakery you always used to go to."_

  
"Glad to hear it," she says, and the line goes dead. She pockets the communicator, and her gaze floats once more to the dashboard. The photograph is still lying there upside-down. She doesn't reach out to flip it again.

  
Moca leans back in her seat and watches the rain gently fall out the window. The world blurs as the spinner moves on, carrying her on and away. On a whim, she taps in a few commands to the dash.

  
After a moment, the familiar music starts up. She listens in silence all the way through to the very end.

  
_One more kiss, dear_  
_One more sigh_  
_Only this, dear, is goodbye_  
_For our love is such passion, such pleasure_  
_I will treasure until I die_

  
_Like the sun, dear, up on high_  
_We'll return, dear, to the sky_  
_And we'll banish the pain and the sorrow_  
_Until tomorrow, goodbye_

**Author's Note:**

> rewatched my favorite movie last night and just had to write this whole scenario out immediately. thank you for reading! comments are always appreciated, and you can find me on twitter as well @tractioncities


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